Three-dimensional (3D) modeling of physical objects has many applications in the area of computer graphics. For example, computer-based 3D models of objects may be employed to generate animation, to insert digital images into film or photographic images, to design objects, and for many other purposes. As computing power has increased and 3D modeling algorithms have become more sophisticated, it has become possible to model objects of increasing complexity. For example, an object model may include data representative of hundreds or thousands, or more, individual surfaces of a modeled object.
Image-based 3D modeling systems may reconstruct a 3D model of an object from multiple images taken from different viewpoints of the object. Such image-based modeling systems may be interactive, such that a user may identify feature curves of the object by outlining such feature curves on a display of the images. Conventional 3D modeling systems may rely on feature curves which appear in multiple images of the object. Such systems may model smooth surfaces by creating patch boundaries from an intersecting network of feature curves that persist across the multiple images. However, the persistent, multi-view feature curves may not be dense or connected enough to accurately define a smooth object surface. Without sufficient intersections between the feature curves, the topology which defines how the 3D surface of the object connects the feature curves remains undefined.
Other conventional 3D modeling systems may rely on feature curves which appear in single-view images of the object. For example, such conventional systems may rely on single-view feature curves such as silhouette curves or occluding contour curves, or may rely on zero-view feature curves such as skeleton curves. However, such conventional systems are not capable of integrating multi-view feature curves, which results in a decrease in the accuracy of 3D models for particular types of objects. Furthermore, such conventional, single-view systems require additional manual annotation, when compared to multi-view 3D modeling systems, to reconstruct a 3D model of an object.